Era is the second album from London based band Echo Lake. Watch the video for lead single ‘Waves’ below.

Debut album Wild Peace was released in June 2012, after the then five piece had surfaced 18 months prior to a flurry of blog attention. The record is a near-perfect encapsulation of their early sound, with critics calling it “dazzling, hypnotic and deliriously seductive” and “truly magnificent”. However loud the acclaim, the release was inevitably overshadowed by the shock death of drummer Peter Hayes a few days before release.

The band recovered in private. The songwriting pair of guitarist Thom Hill and vocalist Linda Jarvis would spend two years working on the tracks which would form Era in East London’s Holy Mountain Studio, the first time the band had spent in a professional studio. The album is a result of this experience; far maturer, denser and considered than the band’s home recorded debut. Points recall the textures and expansive ambition of Spaceman 3, Neu! and Deerhunter yet the album is never stylistically referential to any particular period or style.

Instead, at seven tracks and 45 minutes length Era is a deep, singular work deserving of full and repeat listening. The album’s defining tracks are ‘Dröm’ and ‘Waves’, both built around hard, totemic rhythm sections and maximal dynamics. By contrast ‘Era’ is a perfect guitar-pop track; submissive, alluring and playful in restraint. The ten minute closer ‘Heavy Dreaming’ leaves the album on a triumphant tone, and ends a near three year silence from one of the UK’s most promising bands.

The band will play two live dates – a London launch, and a hometown Birmingham show – around album release, before embarking on wider touring over the spring and summer.

Jire is the project of 18 year old South London composer and producer Nathan Geyer. With a background in classical composition, Geyer creates fluctuating sonic structures imbued with a deep emotional resonance. The ‘Kiowa Polytope’ EP – his first public tracks – is borne from found sounds, acoustic improvisation, contemporary electronic production and minimal classical technique, taking inspiration from across the visual arts and literature. Centrepiece ‘SSTNSLNC’ is based on the samples the producer took from the Sistine Chapel, breathed into life with quaking sub-bass.

Directed by Halls himself, ‘Aside’ is the third and final video from second album ‘Love To Give’. The Extended Edition of the record – featuring album outtakes, covers and new material, including an ambient collaboration with producer Richard Formby – is out now on iTunes. The original edition is still available on limited 180gm 12″/CD here.

Featuring on the upcoming reissue of ‘Love To Give’ and premiered today on Dummy, this collaboration between Halls and producer Richard Formby is “all effects, modulations, notes and patterns were created on the spot, one recording, no multi-tracking and no overdubs. It’s a brief snapshot.

“We were on tour and it was the morning after playing a show in Leeds,” says Samuel Howard, aka Halls. “Richard invited us to his studio in the city and we went there, all of us, and played around with his gear. Whilst he was showing the others the recording room, Ian and I started improvising on an old Farfisa keyboard. The keyboard was a bit broken, one of the keys only made white noise. Ian took the left-hand side and started playing an arpeggiated pattern of bass notes, fairly slowly, with his left hand. We added more patterns bit by bit, and by the time both our hands were playing arpeggiated patterns Richard had turned on the Revox – I think it was an A77 or a B77 – and was running effects through the recording too, a panned delay. We didn’t realise he was recording at the time, we only found out after. The improvisation was recorded on some knackered reel of tape, hence the distortions and alternating speeds. We kept playing until we couldn’t go on. It got quite intense in the studio..”

Halls’s sophomore album ‘Love To Give’ was originally released in February 2014. This August’s extended edition is a chance at a wider view of Samuel Howard’s vision for the album, including new original material, covers, reinterpretations, and an ambient collaboration with producer Richard Formby. Check out this cover version of Cat Power’s ‘The Greatest’, and the full extended tracklisting, below.

Halls plays London’s Hoxton Bar Kitchen on Friday 25th July (tickets), and the reissue is due August 18th.

The ’19 Jewels’ EP launch party takes place on Thurs 5 June at the Scotch Of St James, London. Throwing Shade will be performing live, alongside fellow NTS Radio DJs Reverie, James Massiah, and producer Darq E Freaker. For FREE entry and more info visit this link.

Check the kaleidoscopic second track from Throwing Shade’s ’19 Jewels’ EP, ‘Pure Life’. The London producers debut EP is out May 19th and available for pre-order on very limited 12″ vinyl with artwork by Rachel Noble and iTunes DL now.

Throwing Shade is a London producer and NTS Radio presenter. Following on from her ‘Mystic Places’ 12” (released on Kassem Mosse’s Omnira imprint in October ’13), this new EP, entitled ’19 Jewels’ offers a further, intoxicating glimpse at her unique “cosmic R&B” and “digital soul”. Drawing in iridescent strains of popular music – from African and Asian modes to the grimey axis of London’s contemporary sound narrative – Throwing Shade creates a diverse and abstract sound patchwork on ’19 Jewels’, intangibly borne in the here-and-now.

“The Montreal/Toronto trio take care to temper surrealism with folky, multicultural undercurrents, weaving the aboriginal music of their North Canadian upbringing into the visionary sounds of Gang Gang Dance, Fever Ray and Gazelle Twin. Subtly entrancing and sulphurous, ‘Kalaboogie’ stretches out like a volcanic winter, soaring over Doomsquad’s native Canadian wilds and effortlessly outpacing the long shadow of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell.”